


Decomposition

by yum_cy



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Internalized Queerphobia, Other, Poetry, Queer Themes, feel free to tell me if i need to add any more warnings, specific warnings in the summary of each poem, the process of learning to hate yourself before learning to love yourself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:21:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27979536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yum_cy/pseuds/yum_cy
Summary: Fear, Hatred, and Love; A Study In Ten Queer PoemsTo Cherry
Comments: 2





	1. Atlas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheFlyingWriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFlyingWriter/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw: hate crime mention (implied through out the poem but it isn't stated), slight body horror (as in wounds and anatomy are used as metaphors/imagery/etc)

**Atlas**

The stars are white

Like the color of the bag the police brought,

Like the sides of the boats they pushed into the water,

Like the fragments of a jaw bone scattered across the sidewalk.

I make a list:

  * A wrist
  * A trachea
  * The left hemisphere of a brain



She had them once,

Carried them in the bag of her body.

Carried them next to the pendant on her necklace.

I add molars to the list.

I think she held the galaxy

In the dip of her ankles

And her ball joint hips.

I think she held the sky

Along the wavy line

Of her shattered shoulders,

Licked the clouds from the air

And spit them out again.

The water from the tap should run red,

Iron rust and a draining lake.

The bowl of my sink sits in her clavicle.

I wash my hands

And my knuckles brush bone.

I add the hinge of a jaw,

Cradled palms,

A breastbone curved like the dome of the sky,

To the list.

There are wings

Made of PVC pipe and scrap fabric

Draped down the sidewalk.

There are screams

Of hell and damnation

Written in the dotted lines

Down the center of the road.

I cut my hair like hers

And pin the scissors to the wall.

My hands are cold and stiff

From the ice cold water

They found her in.

I cut my door off at the knees,

Paint my walls with algae.

I know her name

In the spaces between my fingers.

I know her name

In the dip of my shoulder blades.

Inhale,

Crust your teeth with moss and seaweed,

Choke on salt crusted lips,

Exhale.

Wake up and lick the bone powder out of your mouth.

Wake up and make a list.


	2. A Monster Locked In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw: blood mention (one line that uses it as a metaphor)

**A Monster Locked In**

There is a monster in the closet.

It doesn’t much care for the sunlight,

Doesn’t know there is anything more than darkness.

It rests its claws on your throat,

Growls into the restless night.

There is no hero to hold it back,

No sword to pierce it’s heart.

It holds the princess

Behind winter coats and fancy skirts,

It presses its tongue to the points of its teeth,

Stains the carpet with it’s blood.

There is a monster in the closet.

It doesn’t know love that doesn’t hurt,

Has never heard a story

About a monster with a big heart.

Have you ever heard such a tale?

Is there anything worth aching for,

The way this creature aches-

With a jaw clenched shut,

With ruddy cheeks and a tear clogged throat.

There is a monster in the closet,

And a lock on the door,

And some kind of fear in its lungs.

How disgusting.

How frightened.


	3. Combustion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw: heavy anatomy metaphors (body parts and bodily harm used as metaphors and imagery)

**Combustion**

This kind of love breaks bone.

It is a lesson learned

When splintered marrow pierces skin,

Juts out from the inside.

It is not meant for a human frame,

Not meant to be held beneath sinew

And pumping veins.

It presses against the thin flesh of a wrist,

Runs

Up the curve of an elbow.

This kind of love warps skeletons.

It is a lesson learned

In empty eye sockets

And loosening jaws.

It is not meant for a human brain,

Not meant to be held in synapses

And spinal fluid.

It presses against the dome of a skull,

Curls around the cartilage of an ear.

This kind of love holds itself

In the backs of knees,

Hold itself in cupped palms.

It rots the skin

And the weakening muscle.

It is not meant for flesh,

Stains cheeks,

Stains fingertips,

Stains timorous vocal chords,

Stains everything it touches.


	4. milk and honey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw: violence mention, Abrahamic religion references, blood mention, cannabalism is used as a metaphor, lions

**milk and honey**

I think I misled you

When I said I made room.

I meant I learned how to unhinge my jaw

And swallow you whole.

There is nothing soft

About the fingers on my wrist,

Nothing kind about

The shine in your eyes

From the burning sacrifice 

I laid at your feet.

_ (I haven’t believed since I was young,  _

_ but I would follow you through the desert.  _

_ I would build you an altar and leave my blood in a bowl.) _

You called me baby,

On a dark night when my hands shook

And the world twisted and splattered

When it hit the sidewalk.

You called me baby

And I’ve cradled it in my aching jaw,

Between the chipped teeth

And bleeding gums.

Sipped it away until I could believe

You meant to soothe my throat.

I think I misled you

When I said I loved you.

I meant that lions play with their prey,

And love the taste of carrion.

_ (This isn’t the lions den, and I am not the lion,  _

_ but I’ll devour you just the same.) _

I chant your name like a prayer.

Have you ever heard anything so desperate?

It spills from my lips

And drenches your hair.

You dig your teeth in my name,

Dig your shovel in the dirt.

My teeth scrape my cheeks

And draw lines in the Earth.

_ (My teeth are sharp and pointed. _

_ I was never meant to eat anything kind.) _

The soap by the sink is milk and honey

But that doesn’t make this Jerusalem.

I scrub my hands with it anyways.


	5. Plague

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw: sickness, death mention, graphic descriptions of sickness or plague
> 
> (please pay special attention to these warnings, they are especially relevant to the global situation right now. this poem is not about the current situation, but it is extra sensitive.)

**Plague**

I don’t think this is love.

It tastes like it

In the dark early mornings,

Feels like it with your hair

In my mouth.

I never sleep at your house,

Hold my muscles still enough

That you don’t wake up through my panic.

Sleepovers have always been like that,

Your head next to mine

And my heart in my throat.

I don’t think this is love,

Not when it rots everything it touches.

Your skin dies where I touch it,

Crackling sickness and pus

Curling around your palm

From where you pulled me down the hall.

A bubo pulsing on your chin

From where I held your head still

And painted your cheeks

With the grainy blush you snatched from your sister.

No, this can’t be love,

Not when the very touch of me corrupts.

How do you sit so close to me,

At the center of my orbit,

And not see the decay?

You,

Masterpiece of a girl.

There’s a reason paintings are locked away.


	6. Anatomy Lesson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw: body used as a metaphor, blood mention (brief), injury mention (brief and improbable)

**Anatomy Lesson**

Here

Bends the sinew,

Stretched between a sleepover

And stale sugar on chapped lips.

Here

Curves the pelvis,

Arching over the long nights

Spent staring at the ceiling

And seeing her face.

Here

Stands the tibia,

Supporting the marinette tension

Wrapped through the fragile hinges.

Here

Spills the lungs,

Tumbling out from under the rib cage

And flattening on the concrete.

The blood sticks under fingernails

When fluttering lungs

Are scraped off the dirt.

Here

Sits the tear ducts,

Tipping down paper cheeks

Soaking the ski jump cheekbones

And salting sugary lips.

The soda drunk hours ago

Is transfered from skin to skin.

The carbonation gone flat

And the syrup gone sticky.

Here

Moves the tongue,

Tucked under the knot in the throat

Licking the aftertaste through the mint

And cold water.

Here

Builds the muscle,

Painted on in layers

Detailed in the base of the skull.

Here

Arches a the wrist,

Extended across the crumbling stone

Splashed in technicolor gore.

Is the heart in the textbook,

Anchored behind the ribs

And dipping down the shoulders?

Is the stained sidewalk in the textbook,

Glimpsed under the spilled organs?

Here

Suspends the femur,

Precarious over the stained glass

Art

Left in memorial.

Left in praise to the whole incomprehensible mess.


	7. Here, I Touch the Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw: scars mention, fire mention, avalanche mention, broken glass mention

**Here, I Touch the Stars**

Tell me it was a dream,

Hidden between rustling leaves

And shadowed sheets.

Nothing else than inspiration,

Nothing else than constellations.

But we were written there, weren’t we?

The stars spell our names,

Tuck the letters behind our teeth

Next to our forked tongues.

Chip off the pieces

That don’t fit in the history books.

Erase the letters

That don’t tell the stories

They let us hear.

Let them scar pale enough

To be blank under classroom lights.

I don’t know how to leave the pieces of me

That ache when the pressure changes,

Don’t know how to separate the scars

And the unmarred flesh.

So I love

I love

I love it

Like ashes left after a fire,

Like sun on snow after an avalanche.

The sharp edges of broken glass

Glimmer just the same

As stars in the night.

Who’s to say I don’t belong among them?


	8. Goddess

**Goddess**

Aphrodite was not quiet.

She didn’t hold herself

With shoulders hunched,

Didn’t lower her voice

Or censor her words.

Love is called a flame for a reason,

A weapon

And a shield.

A goddess does not hide,

Did not live in fear.

The world quaked under her feet,

Trembled at her word.

My love,

My deity,

Didn’t your guts clench like this?


	9. A Love Letter in Code

**A Love Letter in Code**

You,

Dreamer of messy hair - 

Prayer of spilled paint.

You,

You.

You hold this color in your cupped hands.

Can you feel the heat,

The liquid beauty?

I can see it in your eyes.

They don’t show us on screens,

Daughter of Bilius.

We are too big in our love,

Too loud in our pride.

You,

Singer of sin - 

Chanter of glory.

What’s the difference in the eyes of a criminal?

Is our lavender love,

Our violet breaths

Too bright to look at?

I have learned to be soft

In your harsh light.

I have learned to hold my ground

In the tremors of your voice.

Light a candle on the day of remembrance

\- Scream your name till they can’t forget it.

You,

You.

I can see your wings in the reflection.

Friend of Dorthy,

My love for you is criminal.


	10. Decomposition

**Decomposition**

Rot away the ache in your chest,

Let it crumble to dirt.

There are gardens to fertilize,

Plants yet to grow.

Devour the ice in your veins,

Churn it around until it melts.

The water it leaves will dribble down your chin,

Will soak the collar of your shirt.

Have you turned soil between your fingers?

Have you pressed the seeds into the ground?

These seeds are meant to grow.

These seeds aren’t boiled.

Where did you hear that they wouldn’t grow?

Turn off the T.V.

Close your books.

Feel the rain wash away the tangled roots.

All that time you spent underground,

Ripping yourself apart,

Afraid of the dark.

You only had to turn on the light.

You only had to dig.

Isn’t this luscious?

The living, breathing Earth

And the writhing creatures

That live in her crust.

Beauty grows among these dead things,

The world is rich among these dead things.

Here

At the bottom of the ecosystem

You will grow a garden.


End file.
